Vanja
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Meaning
from the Russian pet form of Ivan, a form of John, "Yahweh is gracious", used in Scandinavia mainly for girls
How popular is Vanja around the world?
In the United States, Vanja is not on the Social Security record for 2020 to 2025: names under 5 in a year are withheld at source. In Austria, 3 girls named Vanja were born in 2025, ranked 1,026th among girls that year, spellings that differ only by special characters counted together.
Vanja is on the official records of Austria and Spain.
United States
under 5 a year
In the United States, Vanja is not on the Social Security record for 2020 to 2025: names under 5 in a year are withheld at source.
Vanja appears in US Social Security baby-name records only in small numbers: never enough in any decade to draw a popularity curve.
Births with a Social Security record. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration
Austria
1 in 13,000
In Austria, 3 girls named Vanja were born in 2025, ranked 1,026th among girls that year, spellings that differ only by special characters counted together.
In Austria, 3 boys named Vanja were born in 2025, the 981st most common name among boys that year, spellings that differ only by special characters counted together.
share of that year’s births on record
Live births in Austria by year of birth, 1984–2025, from Statistik Austria’s first-name statistics; spellings that differ only by special characters are counted together (umlauts stay apart), every name down to a single birth is published, and the count covers babies with Austrian citizenship only until 2009, every baby from 2010, and from 2015 also births abroad to mothers living in Austria. Shares divide by Statistik Austria’s count of live births from 2010, and before that by the file’s own total for the year. Source: Statistik Austria - data.statistik.gv.at (OGDEXT_VORNAMEN_1, updated 2026-07-09)
Spain
1 in 1.3M
In Spain, 35 residents are named Vanja, ranked 19,441st among women, with a mean age of 38.2 years.
Residents of Spain on 1 January 2025. Spain publishes how old a name’s living bearers are, not a birth series, so there is no year chart. Source: INE (Spain), Censo de Población anual, 1 January 2025
Norway
last on record 2019
Vanja is not on the 2025 record for Norway, where names carried by fewer than 4 people in a year are withheld at source.
share of the girls on the register for that year, SSB’s own figure
People who have or have had a Norwegian ID number, emigrants left out, from Statistics Norway’s name statistics (release of January 2026): by year of birth for 1945–2020 (everyone born that year who was ever registered in Norway, including people who registered later and people who have since died) and by year of naming from 2021; only first names carried by 200 or more living people are listed, counts under 4 are withheld, and SSB merges spellings that differ only by letters outside the Norwegian alphabet. The shares are SSB’s own, of the people of that sex and year in that count; the 2025 figure counts the children named that year, and no year is a count of births. Source: Statistics Norway (SSB), table 10467 (updated 2026-01-28)
South Australia
last on record 1998
Vanja is not on the 2017 record for South Australia, whose registry publishes every name given that year.
The count never rose above 1 in a year, too few to chart.
Births registered in South Australia (not all of Australia) by first name and year of registration, 1944–2017, from the state’s Births, Deaths and Marriages registry, which publishes every name down to a single birth in capitals; a spelling its export repeats inside a year is counted once, and from 2018 only a top 100 is published, so the series ends at 2017. Source: Consumer and Business Services (South Australia), popular baby names
Not on the record in Mexico City, Argentina, Puerto Rico, England and Wales, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland and Poland: those registries withhold small counts, so rare uses may sit below their floors.
Not on the Chile record: nametree keeps spellings that reached 5 registrations in some year, so rarer uses are not shown. Not on the Montevideo record for 1940 to 2011: that registry withholds nothing, so this spelling was not given there in those years. Not on the France record: nametree keeps spellings that reached 20 births in some year, so rarer uses are not shown.
The Vanja deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Vanja truly comes from, how it traveled, and what a century of records reveals. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Vanja fits with your family’s names and surname.
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